Thread by @GeorgePeretzQC

This is why I disagree with voting against an FTA with the EU that the current government decides to sign.

https://twitter.com/georgeperetzqc/status/1331903586742185984

But I also disagree with voting for it: any deal will be a bad one, driven by the current government’s incoherent obsession with “sovereignty” (an obsession that appears to apply only to agreements with the EU). theguardian.com/politics/2020/…

Labour should promise to go back and renegotiate this bad FTA when it gets into government. Its inadequacies will reveal themselves pretty swiftly over the next year or so.

The tactics - what message the vote will send out to key Labour targets - can be debated. But I often find that when the tactics seem unclear, it’s often helpful just to ask what is the principled thing to do.

When in doubt, do the right thing.

Voting for a bad deal that you will want to go back and redo in government is not principled. But voting against it - given the consequences of no deal - would be irresponsible.

(And saying that it will pass anyway isn’t principled: you shouldn’t vote against something you don’t want to fail.)

Abstention therefore seems to me to be the principled position (as it often is when you are faced with a choice between bad options).

As to the tactical implications: well, you are always better at explaining and defending your position - and selling it to voters - if you actually believe in it.

Or, as Jon says in one tweet.

https://twitter.com/jonworth/status/1332618860751630337